Tie it up in an ending

When I bought this un-marked skein of yarn in Sweden in April, I never thought that I'd be wearing it back in Sweden, before the year was out.  But that's exactly what happened.

Mr Knitty was supposed to be working on New Year's Day, until he wasn't.  Since we didn't celebrate Christmas together (he was on nights), we decided to go back to Sweden for New Year.  The original plan was to go back to Stockholm, until we found that flights to Copenhagen were cheaper, so we went to visit friends in Southern Sweden instead.

Knitting for the trip was the stockingette section of Eyeblink (Ravellry link), started on the train to the hotel we stayed in, the night before we flew.

In the last gripping instalment of the scarf, the yarn had snapped after I'd finished the cast-off and I didn't have enough to weave the ends in.  The solution to this was to knot the good yarn to the snapped yarn and felt the two together, giving me a tail long enough to weave in properly.  True, I wasn't expecting to be doing this in a hotel room at gone 11:00 at night, but sometimes needs must.

We saw 2016 in at the Malmö fireworks.  After being used to the London fireworks for so many years, it was very strange to be such a small event.  I was expecting to be waiting for hours beforehand.  Friends of mine were planning to arrive at quarter to midnight.  Oh, and they had Land of Hope and Glory, in Swedish.  The guy next to us was bobbing up and down, as if he were at The Proms.  

I have no idea what the words mean, but friends tell me that they had been re-written for the event and were very pro-immigration and welcoming to newcomers.  I find it slightly amusing that it's the total opposite of what it actually means in English.  If anyone is able to give a translation, that would be really helpful. 
New Year's day was lovely.  We travelled from Malmö to Lund and had a walking tour.  (Only one row on the train, as I found a knot and had an impromptu splice of the two ends, by felting them against my jeans.  Thank goodness for 100% wool yarn).  I got to meet-up with more friends and introduce them to Mr Knitty.  We ate pizza, played games and generally had fun.

The day after, Mr Knittiy and I had a look round the Malmö museum.  I bought a postcard of a woman knitting, to give me a 5k coin for the locker.  We took photos of the windmill which appears in the opening credits of The Bridge  

And I wore the scarf again:

Annual round up of 2015

At the beginning of 2015, Let's Knit magazine wrote a list of twelve things that knitters should do over the year 2015.  Rather than go through each one individually, it's probably easier to make a list of the ones I didn't manage. 

• Knit a top-down seamless sweater (Not sure why this should be better or worse than a bottom-up sweater) 
• Try steeking
• Learn to crochet
• Take part in a yarn bomb
• Try a new craze
• Dye your own yarn

All good ideas, I just never got round to them.

Of the rest....

• Join a knitting group

Sort of.  There was a knitting group of about five or six people from work.  I went along to one meeting. 

• Take part in a knitalong

I thought I'd considered it, but turns out that was in 2014.  

• Knit in British yarn

Yup, Shetland yarn for the last project I started in 2015

• Design your own pattern

Yup, the Frances sample scarf.  Didn't work, but I did learn something from it. 

• Go on a knitting holiday

No, although a knitting retreat has been booked for next month

• Knit socks

Only sort of  I have yet to conquer the heel. 

A quick look back at my personal resolutions gives a similar picture:


I did try to learn how to turn the heel of a sock.  The first Youtube video confused me (despite the number of comments saying how helpful it was).  It didn't help that the person narrating said to use half the stitches - and then only  after I'd started knitting, said that this should be an odd number.  The first time I tried to get a friend to teach me, I was ill and tired.  The second time I was just tired.  Neither of these were good times for learning, so it's still an unfulfilled resolution.

The 'not buying yarn' thing also did not go to plan, even excluding the get-out clause for souvenir yarn.  In trying to find something before Christmas, I found two balls of sock yarn I totally forgotten I'd bought.  This officially makes me a yarn slut (from the old English slattern.  Why, what do you think I do with my yarn?)  Over the Christmas holidays, I've been back to what was my local yarn shop and got even more sock yarn; one for fun, one for a project I want to knit.  Which nicely goes back to me learning to turn a heel. 

Basically, what I'm trying to get at, is that I'm recycling my resolutions from last year.  This year, I want to:

• Learn to turn the heel of a sock
• Knit an adult jumper (not even fussed whether it's for me or my husband any more)
• Reduce the stash, especially of sock yarn

I've actually tried to be organised this year and made a spreadsheet of what knitting I want/need to do and by when.  You know, birthdays, Christmas and the like.  Hopefully this will keep my mind and fingers focused.  I'm not going to share it, as I don't want the shame of having to admit that none of it went to plan).  

In the interim, please excuse me.  I have a Ravelry stash  stash to update....

Christmas-ish.

Alright, I swore I wasn't going to do and Christmas knitting, and I was only sort of right. To clarify, I did not specifically knit anything for Christmas presents. What I did manage, was to sew up all the baby hats I'd knitted for my ninja nephew and get them ready to be gifted. Everything had been knitted over the summer, but then left at the 'nearly finished' stage. You know, that low point between the fun of knitting and the joy of seeing something finished - also known as sewing up. Luckily, the commuter trains were quieter than normal in the week running up to Christmas. Even more luckily, I work in London where nobody speaks to anybody else on the train,even if they're brandishing a darning needle and sewing up baby hats! Just to check that everything was safe to shove in the washing machine, I did just that on 23rd December, blocked the hats and left them overnight to dry, to wrap them before going to work on Christmas eve. 

The yarn is left over sock yarn, which I managed to intercept from knitting/Guiding friend K, as she was passing it on to knitting/ Guiding friend Goo. Neither of them minded. K got rid of yarn, Goo was given other bags of yarn to make pom-poms with her Brownies and I got sock yarn for a sock yarn blanket. 

Yes, a sock yarn blanket. 

It was only after reading a leaflet which came with one of the knitting magazines, possibly around the time of Princess Charlotte being born, that I realised my yarn had a higher calling. I still have some of the sock yarn left over, so if I do ever make a sock yarn blanket, I can look at it and remember the baby hats made for my nephew. 

The pattern was part of a layette set. The pattern was a fairly simple rib with a one stitch selvage, followed by stockingette stitch, until a set of descreases for the brim. I found it easier to ignore the selvage stitch and do a simple 2 x 2 rib, and then increase by one stitch when it got to the stockingette section - so that I had the right number of stitches for the decreases. All in all, a very simple pattern, which I would knit again. 

Also a really easy knit to take with me to Japan to do on the plane and shinkansen. The red, white and black one was knit in a park in Ueno on my first day in the country.  The black and white one was knit at the top of Tokyo Skytree.  The pink, grey and yellow one (Opal yarn) was knit on the train to the airport home. 

I did attempt a jacket as part of the layette, but I could not seem to get guage without using really small needles. My worry was that I'd knit a fabric so stiff that baby wouldn't be able to move in his/her clothing. There's less of an issue with knitting hats. Babies grow so quickly that the hat will fit *sometime*. As it was, they all ended up a slightly different size, so he's well kitted out for the winter.

Confession

Take a look at any knitting blog at the moment, and they'll pretty much all be saying: 'it's nearly Christmas and I've not knitted all my gifts'.  I've found an easy way round that; don't knit gifts for other people (unless you're sickenly organised and have them done by November). 

There, I've said it.  I'm not planning on knitting any gifts for Christmas.

Of course, this is likely to all slip once I've found the right size needles to hit gauge on the jumper for my ninja nephew.  (Knitted way too big, so if I don't get it done in time for Christmas, he can have it for Easter). 

There are things I'd meant to knit by now.  There are knitting deadlines I have for next year.  I'm going to have to get cracking soon and put it all in a spreadsheet.

What I do want, knittting-wise, is a project to last me over Christmas/New Year.  Most likely this will be a shawl of some sort.  I also have sewing, and need to find a new job, and reading some plays and catching up on sleep and tidying the flat and sewing up some of my UFOs... 

Good to have a holiday with nothing to do, isn't it! 

Overdue

Yes, I'm still here - I just haven't been doing much knitting.  Partly, because I haven't had the time, and partly because I've had a flare up of my wrists, which is usually made worse by knitting.  It's all a bit sucky, but health has to come before knitting.

There's a great long list of things I need to finish up; that is, sew up, or weave in ends, or simply just block.  There are two scarves which could be completed today, if I'd just do the final weave and block.  I may use this as a procrastination tool when I'm bored of cleaning.

There is a massive list of things I want to knit, not least of all a sweater for me.  I also need to learn how to turn a heel on a pair of socks.  That, combined with the daily commute and the vast amount of sock yarn I have, should deal with a lot of the stash.  I've also seen that West Yorkshire Spinners have new colours in their Country Birds range.  (Kingfisher, Goldfinch and Peacock).

I need to re-think the way I blog.  Rather than doing it when I have something to say, I've got ideas of having a bit more structure.

Paris has happened.  Nick Alexander, the first confirmed British casualty was somebody I knew during 6th form and youth theatre.  I'm not going to pretend that we were bestest buds; I think I've seen him once since we left school.  However, his death has come as a massive shock to me and several of my friends.  The number of times I've seen news reports where the same photo appears over and over again, whilst tributes are paid to the deceased.  There's something very weird about seeing the same photo appearing over and over again, when it's somebody you know.

However, a much more happy event, which will impact my knitting life, is the birth of my sister's baby boy; my ninja nephew.  Photos will only ever happen with parental permission, so you'll just have to imagine a cute little baby with round chubby cheeks and a lot of hair.  Seriously, everybody commented on the hair!  He, like this blog was also (albeit slightly) overdue. 

Not going to plan

Since it’s the end of the working week, I think it’s perfectly acceptable to be hitting the beer cellar. (Other tipples are available). Please join me in raising a glass to knitting projects that didn’t always go to plan. 

Last Friday, Mr Knitty and I had tickets to see a live recording of The Last Leg  (If you get the opportunity, go). The Plan was to knit something in the queue. 

As an aside, Adam Hills must be a brilliant person to knit socks for. If anybody’s going to benefit from hand knitted socks, it’s going to be somebody with two very different feet. 

 Anyway. I had some un-labelled yarn from Sweden and a pattern which is basically knitted until you get to the end of the yarn, so can be as big or as small as you wanted.  I bought the yarn because I liked the colours, and the mystery of it having no label appealed to me:

The yarn with no name

And, because I didn't have a clue how long the skein was, having a pattern which didn't rely on having a specific length of yarn, also appealed to me.

The problem with having a skein, is that it needs winding into a ball.  Trust me, if you try doing this, ten minutes before you need to leave the house to catch a train, it's going to get messy.  It took Mr Knitty and I two days to sort it all out, by which time the waiting for the TV programme was well over.

(Seriously, I wanted to give this a standing ovation).

Once I got knitting, it was lovely.  I'm crediting the train delays earlier this week as a major factor in this getting finished so quickly.  As is the way with self-striping yarn, it's kind of exciting to watch the colours change.  And, oh my, the colours were beautiful.  Muted, autumnal and beautiful.  It was almost like watching the seasons change, as I knitted:

Scarf on my desk at work

Close-up of the colours

I did worry that I was going to get pooling, but I got to the end of the yarn before the rows got too long.

Then it came to binding off.

There's always the problem when using circular needles to knit flat, that you're not always sure how long the live edge is.  In my case, I didn't know how much yarn I needed to bind off.  For this, I used the Russian Lace bind-off to give a bit of elasticity.  (First learned in Kate Atherley's Sick Day Shawl) 

Got about a third of the way through and realised that there was no way I was going to get to the end.  No problem, we all misjudge from time to time.  Ripped out the bind-off and tinked back the row, before trying again.  This time was better; I nearly got to the end before realising there wasn't enough yarn to complete the job.

Yup, just a few centimetres of yarn to bind off eleven stitches

I appreciate this is a fairly personal definition of 'better'. 

So, one more row ripped out, and I was able to bind off properly. At this point, I wasn't that fussed about stitches being twisted or not. I just wanted the thing done, so I could get on with the next thing.  I got to the end, I had yarn to spare.  Everything was looking good, until I pulled the yarn through the final loop...

The snag at the end of the Rainbow

Here's to knitting projects which don't quite go to plan.

Cheers. 

Yarn shopping in Tokyo

If you're ever on a yarn diet, do you have a clause for souvenir yarn?  And does it make any kind of difference?  I'd love to pretend that I've kept to my resolution of not buying any yarn (excluding souvenirs of holiday), but I really haven't.  I can honestly say that there's no need to buy any yarn in 2016 and I'd probably still have too much.

The day before our shopping trip, we went to the Miraikan, the National Museum for Emerging Science and Innovation.  I'd decided against buying a handkerchief of the Tokyo Metro system and had the following discussion with Mr Knitty:

Me - In the long run, which is going to better benefit my life?  Spending a thousand yen on...
Him - Yarn.

He knows me too well. 

Yarn shopping in a language I don't speak was an interesting experience.  Having had a look at Ravelry and reading various blogs, I had an idea of where I was heading.  I handed the list to Mr Knitty, who is far better on maps and Metro stations than I am.

Sockmania had a lot of stuff on their website, which I could get back in the UK, so that was dropped from the list.  The Travel Knitter's Guide  and Knitfitch both mentioned Avril which sounded amazing but their Tokyo shop was a bit too far out to attempt as part of our shopping trip.  (Although, I've just discovered that there's also a branch in Kyoto which may have been easier to get to).  The Puppy  shop was also a bit too far out, although I did find some of their yarns in one of the shops I went to.

HK Housewife pointed me towards Okadaya near Shibuya Station.  We looked on every floor and found loads of expensive buttons, which were very cute but I didn't know where I'd be able to use them.  No photos of any of the stuff we saw, as photos weren't allowed.  The Travel Knitter's Guide said that this was the best place in Tokyo she found for knitting books.  I did have a look at the selection they had - but they were all in Japanese.  I was hoping for one either in English with Japanese patterns, or something bilingual.  The only one I vaguely considered was one on Shetland lace, as it had charts which don't rely on language to interpret.  Since I don't really have any desire to knit Shetland lace, I left it where it was.

I did, however buy two lots of yarn - Noro and Puppy.  I'd been a bit prepared and found out what is charged for Noro in the UK and what the equivalents are in yen - then found several lines of Noro yarn which I've never heard of.  So of course, I had to buy them:

Puppy Pichenette, Noro Melody and Noro Kama

Maroon yarn = Puppy Pichenette
Blue/purple = Noro Melody
Green = Noro Kama

We then went to Shinjinku to find Tokyo Hands , which other bloggers have recommended.  

Anpanman origami paper 

Maybe my blood sugar was too low, but I didn't find it anything to rave about.  It had a lot of stuff, it was worth visiting but it mostly left me a bit 'meh' - until I found the origami papers.  There were some beautiful ones, which were much more expensive than I'd seen elsewhere.  I did, however, find Anpanman origami paper, which made me happy, so it had to come home with me. 


After this, we went to 

Yuzawaya sign

which was in the same building as Tokyo Hands, a few floors up.  I absolutely loved this shop, it had all sorts.  I bought myself a small cut of fabric to make a bag for my wrist splints, and a cross stitch kit for my best friend.  


There was a lot of yarn (sorry, they didn't allow photos), mostly Japanese brands which weren't Noro.  I did find some from Italy and some non-Japanese cotton yarn.  This was the point that Mr Knitty had gone for a sit-down, so my spending ability was somewhat un-curbed.  He's very good at standing next to me, asking what I'm planning on using that yarn for.  My aim was to find yarn to make him socks.  After a lot of going round in circles and trying to work out what the yarn labels said, using the knitting dictionary on the Planet Purl website, I gave up and pointed at the phrase asking for sock yarn, which I then augmented with 'Nippon; Japanese'.  The guy pointed me towards Olympus MakeMake socks.  I wasn't sure if one pack of three was enough for both socks, or just for one - so I bought two packs of three, in both colours which I thought Mr Knitty would like.  (Still trying to figure out this 'turning the heel' business, so he may have to wait a bit longer).  Seems I lucked out; the yarn is 70% merino, so will be gorgeously soft, even if any socks don't last for long. 

Olympus MakeMake socks - colourway 908 

Olympus MakeMake socks - colourway 907

Then I discovered the bargain bin, with ten balls of yarn for 98 yen, (52p) plus tax.  There was other stuff, but I didn't really like the colours.  Now, you'd think that if something was being sold off so cheap, then it was probably cheap to start with, right?  After putting it in my basket, taking it out of my basket to have a proper think (what would I actually use this for?) I then decided I was going to buy it after all.  Why not, it was cheap!  Turns out the cheapness was due to it being 100% polyester.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  



Then we went to Harajuku and may have snickered at the name of the street where we were headed.

Of course, we were taking a photo of the screen, as it had a camera on the crowd and we just wanted a self-portrait. 

This trip was to a shop called Daiso.  For UK readers, this is a cross between Wilkinsons and Poundland.  Lots of stuff at pretty cheap prices.  The branch in Hiroshima had 100% wool yarn for a grand total of 55p a ball.  Possibly a bit scratchy for wearing next to your skin; perfect for felting.  None of that in the Tokyo branch, they only had acrylic yarn.  I did manage to buy a lot of origami paper.  For 55p.  Would almost be rude not to.

I didn't manage to make it to Fabric Town.  Nor did I make it to Loft, which is another shop that bloggers have said good things about.  By that point in the day, I thought I'd run out of money (I hadn't), was slightly concerned about the space we had to carry stuff back and was feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of choice of stuff available to spend cash on. 

I no longer need any more yarn.  I have a stash of 60; enough for at least another year.  On updating my Ravelry stash, I realised that there are several batches of yarn which I haven't uploaded.  I don't regret the yarn I've bought - even the polyester stuff.  Just please remind me not to buy any more, not to invoke the souvenir clause and not to travel anywhere else, just in case! 

Knitting on Top Of The World

We're back from Japan.  Arrived back home yesterday, still feeling groggy and not really that keen on doing the sensible things like unpacking and putting stuff away. 

I may have over-bought on both yarn and origami paper.  Most of the origami paper came from Daiso for Y108, the equivalent of 55p/ 89 cents.  My plan is to fold a whole load more paper cranes and send them back to Hiroshima.  I have enough for several hundred; after a fit of insomnia at 4:00 this morning, fifteen cranes have already been folded. 

I did manage some knitting, during train journeys and flights - and waiting time for said train journeys and flights. 

Knitting on the train between Fukoshima and Hiroshima

The best knitting, as far as I'm concerned was at the top of the world's tallest tower - Tokyo Skytree  I was knitting in the queue to get tickets from the Tembo desk to the Tembo galleria (the highest point of the tower).  Only I was half way through a row as we got in the lift, so I had to finish it at the top. 

Knitting at the top of Tokyo Skytree

Literally, knitting on top of the world. 

View from Tokyo Skytree; Mount Fuji is somewhere in the distance

The yarn purchases will be covered in another post - but there was some.  Come on, this is Japan - home of Noro, there was no way I was coming home empty handed.  Turns out that it's the home of other lesser known yarn brands too.  

Dinner on the last night was in the Tokyo Bay area, which was just beautiful.

Tokyo Bay

Then on the monorail to the airport I found a new definition of over-eager - trying to knit standing up on a train, with a 16kg rucksack and no hand holds.  It didn't last more than a few rows:

Knitting on the monorail

The item I was knitting in that photo is now waiting to be sewn up, again another blog post awaits.

Now if you'll please excuse me, I think it's bed time. 

I hope this works...

Given that I am currently in Kyoto, it's no real surprise that parts of my internet are now speaking Japanese at me.  Problem is, I don't understand - so I'm clicking a lot of buttons and hoping.  If you can read this, then my method's clearly worked.  (Pictures may be one step too far; we'll see how it goes).

I started with a couple of days in Tokyo.  Love the city, totally confused by the metro system.  Stations which are marked as interchanges can have walks between them of several hundred metres.  My friend (and tent buddy) C and I went to the Tokyo Museum, where we saw, amongst other things, a whole load of the most beautiful gowns:

Just look at the detail:

Then travelled to the World Scout Jamboree in Yamaguchi, where we started the experience by avoiding a typhoon tropical storm.  The weather was possibly the hottest I've ever experienced, and it's certainly the most I have ever sweat in my life when taking the tent down.  Seriously, sweat in your eyes stings like billy-o.

Husband then flew out to meet me and we met up in Hiroshima.  Although there is lots we saw in Hiroshima, it would be ignorant to ignore the one thing for which it's famous:

The A-Bomb dome, as it's known.  This is the closest building to the hypocentre of the atomic bomb which was dropped in 1945.  The decision was made to keep it exactly as it was.  Personally, I found it far more creepy and evocative at night.

Now, if London lives off coffee, Hiroshima seems to live off cranes.  (Its residents probably drink a lot of coffee too, given the number of drinks machines we saw out and about).  Cranes are a symbol of peace and you will see them everywhere in Hiroshima.

So, in the name of being creative, I learned to make my own, using this tutorial on Youtube. 

Which I then hung up at The Children's Peace Monument with the assistance of our Brownie's mascot - Brownie Bear.

Knitting has also happened - mostly whilst waiting for planes or trains, or on said trains and planes.  I've got five baby hats and a layette which I want to get done by the end of this trip.  I'm two and a half hats in, minus the sewing up.  We've got a long journey tomorrow, so three hats is possible.  I'm saving the layette for the plane journey home.  I can't help thinking that the Japanese class knitting in public as 'something strange that foreigners do'.

Here, have some photos of Buddhas in beanies:

Sock it to me

Have you ever had projects which seem to gather bad karma, the way TV screens gather dust?  The ones which, no matter how you try, just don't seem to click?  I seemed to have that with cuff-down socks.  I had a pair which I tried to knit on double points; it didn't work.  I then tried it on magic loop and ended up knitting back on myself.  The third time I cast on, the needles sat in the WIP bin and when I tried to do anything with them, they ended up so tight on the cable, they wouldn't budge.

Meanwhile Andi is knitting a pair of socks every month for a year, choosing the yarn at random.  I've got about siz month's worth of yarn if I wanted to do the same.  Janna has done a recent post on knitting socks.  My friend Fluffy Owl has shared some beautiful socks on Instagram.  The watermelon socks were particularly luscious.  Let's Knit magazine in the UK is celebrating a summer of socks.  Where am I going wrong?


So on Thursday evening, my friend JP taught me to knit toe-up and it's brilliant.  It made me feel good, and apparently I was grinning like a loon.  She used this cast-on and I was off.  In the space of less than 48 hours it's grown quicker than I realised it would.  Thank goodness for train journeys!

After we left John Lewis, Thursday evening.

Friday morning, after Thursday's train journey home

Friday morning, after the journey to work

Saturday morning, after Friday's delayed journey home

I love that I can see the progress by the way the stripes change.  For those interested, the yarn is Sirdar Heart and Sole in colourway 104 - Move to the Groove.

If I spend the next six months knitting toe-up stockinette socks in self-patterning yarns, I think I can cope with that.  Maybe I'll get a bit more confident with magic loop and try another cuff-down pattern.  Maybe I'll get too impatient of knitting the two socks individually and will try knitting them both at the same time.  (Also good for making sure you get identical twins, rather than fraternal twins).  Who knows!

But first, please excuse me whilst I learn to turn the heel.....

| just want to knit....

Knitting on the train most days (40 minutes of knitting time each way, plus delays and platform waiting time), means that I've got my knitting groove back, slowly and all I want to do this weekend is knit.  There are three bits of stash I want to bust, the unlabelled yarn from Sweden has a pattern I want to knit it up into and there are at least three projects waiting to be finished.  (One of which I suspect is going to have to wait quite a long time, as it's a bit of a knit)  and I want to find stuff for knitting on the flight to Japan.   

Here, have the out-takes from As Time Goes By, my usual knitting viewing at the weekend.  The aim for this weekend is:

• Finish green shrug
• Knit more of the ecru yarn
• Finish big wool wristwarmers and cowl
• Block Turkish Delight scarf

Progress updates to follow.....